Why We’re Demolishing Fallen Oak Cottage

Last week we announced our exciting new venture: We’re moving a 93-year-old home onto the Fallen Oak Cottage property to renovate. But with that news, we also shared that the existing Fallen Oak Cottage would be demolished to make room on the property.

So why are we demolishing the existing house?

1. Economic Value

The existing house on the Fallen Oak Cottage property needs quite a bit of work. To be frank, it was essentially a gut job. Before the historic home came into our lives, we were content with working with what we had, despite the cost.

However, once this historic home came into our lives and we priced out the cost of moving it across the county, it made more economic sense to move forward with that plan versus renovating the existing structure.

Our “new” house will come to the property with a new roof, a newer A/C unit, updated plumbing/electrical, incredible original beadboard behind the drywall, and the original hardwood etc. For comparison, our current structure has no A/C unit, a failing roof, unknown electrical situation (simply due to its exposure to the elements), and unknown plumbing situation. Inside, some of the drywall is gone, exposing the studs. And the flooring situation is that there isn’t any (only subflooring). The amount of money it would take to remedy all of that would be far more than what it will cost to move the historic house.

It makes more economic sense to spend our money this way and get “more house” for our dollars.

2. Historic Features

The current structure on the Fallen Oak Cottage property is in pretty rough shape. There really aren’t any architectural or historic features in the home that make it work attempting to “save.”

Were there any at one time? It’s sort of doubtful. Built in 1969, even though it was considered a “mid-century” home, if there were any of the cool features found in our neighboring cottage (built in 1955), they are long gone. What remains, if it were in good shape, is essentially “cookie-cutter.” There’s really nothing inside to salvage; it was all destined for a dumpster anyway.

Our historic house still has all of its original beauty hidden underneath “modern” updates. Behind all of the drywall is the original beadboard, which is painted in this incredible green color that is a cross between sage and mint. The original hardwood flooring exists in the living room, bedrooms, and hallway. That’s actually where we thought it stopped until we poked around underneath the linoleum in the kitchen a few weeks ago and found it there as well, though we won’t know what kind of shape it’s in until we can get all of the linoleum taken out.

At some point, the owners dropped the original ceiling. However, Rob crawled up into the attic and discovered that much of the original ceiling is still there. He can only see it from the back side, so we’re not sure if it’s also beadboard. We plan to remove the drywall to open those ceilings back up.

3. Functionality

Though we’re unsure of our long-term plans for this house once it’s moved and restored, we’re approaching the project with the mindset of stewarding the space well.

The existing structure only has one bathroom, and there really weren’t any workable solutions for carving out another one that didn’t involve an addition. Our new historic home has two full bathrooms. Both need work, but the footprint already being there is so helpful. We felt whatever the future use of this house and property, two bathrooms are always better than one (we can speak from experience since we only have one bathroom in our own cottage).

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The timeline of this entire project is still fluid as we continue to work through the permitting process. We plan to demolish the structure ourselves to save as much money as possible for the renovation. Rob’s goal is to have the structure completely demolished by the end of July.

He’ll salvage, practically, what he can for other projects. But we don’t expect that to be much more than the framing lumber and rafters.

While it’s not ideal to be doing this kind of work in the literal hottest part of the year in Florida, we’re excited to make way for something dreamier.